VestMatch is performing maintenance on its site on Monday, October 5, 2009 to continue to improve site performance. We are sorry for any issues this may cause, and will have the site online as quickly as possible. Thank you for your understanding.
Maintenance on VestMatch Site
October 5, 2009 by vestmatchAccount History Gives More Transparency
September 9, 2009 by vestmatchIn order to make VestMatch more useful than ever, Plan Champions and Partners can make use of the Account History feature. Every day, we will download to the Plan Champion any new activity in the account (deposits, withdrawals, transactions, etc.). Note that if the financial account is already set up prior to the VestMatch plan, the first download will be for all activity available from the financial provider, be it 30 days, 60 days or 90 days.
The Plan Champion can assign contributions or any other transactions to himself/herself or to a Plan Partner, and elect to display items for the Plan Partners. The Plan Partners will then be able to see an updated contributions chart as well as a table with all the important transactions provided. Using Account History gives all participants the transparency to see contributions and other critical transactions, which can allow Plan Partners to take additional steps.
The Account History data is available for plans linked to a financial account. The link to Account History can be found on the left navigation bar of the Plan Info page.
Improve Your Rate of Return Today
April 7, 2009 by vestmatchIf you have a college savings plan, perhaps even a 529 plan, for longer than two years, you know that the markets have casued quite a bit of damage to your plan. Since the fall of 2007, many of the selections available to you in a 529 plan are down more than 20%. If you invested your savings for college in a traditional equity fund, your losses may be 40% or even 50%. Unlike many other goals where there is flexibility in timing and costs, for college the timing is pretty set and the costs are not totally in your control, unless you consider a less expensive school.
Now what if I told you that you could have a rate of return of 30% or 40% over the next year? And you could be invested in the lowest-risk asset you can find, US Treasury bills. Would you believe me? It’s possible, through collaboration.
Collaboration, having others provide a helping hand in reaching your goal, can turn this disaster around much faster than you could do it on your own. Let’s walk through an example:
Jim and Marge have a 10 year old son and they have $5,000 in a 529 plan today, though it had been as high as $9,500. While they are unlikely to save enough to pay in full for school in 8 years, they want to be as prepared as possible. They decide they can save $500 per month in their 529 education plan. In 8 years, they would have contributed $48,000 more to their plan ($500 x 12 months x 8 years).
Alternatively, Jim and Marge set up a VestMatch plan and link their 529 savings plan to it. Using VestMatch, they invite Jim’s parents, Marge’s parents, and their siblings. Their parents each sign up to contribute $100 per month, and their siblings in total add another $100 per month. Jim and Marge still put in their $500 per month. Note that while Jim and Marge put in $500, just like in the first example, there is actually $800 going in each month — or 40% more than what Jim and Marge invest. This is the best return on those dollars they will ever find. In 8 years, they will have added $76,800 to their college savings.
This “rate of return” is available not just for people saving for college, but also for people who are saving for any financial goal — through collaboration. And VestMatch makes it easy.
VestMatch 101: Parents Saving for College
March 12, 2009 by vestmatchHave you done the math? If you haven’t, check out www.savingforcollege.com for a simple calculator for what to expect for college expenses. To put a newborn through four years of college beginning 18 years from now, you need to save $312,000. Per kid. To reach that, at a 4% return on investment, you would need to contribute $837 per month. Per kid. And that doesn’t take into account the possibility of a devastating loss of account value due to a declining market, like many have seen over the past 18 months.
Let me go out on a limb here. Most parents of newborns are not in jobs where they can easily set aside $837 per month to put into an account earmarked for education. They can scrimp and save, but this is, for most people, unrealistic. What are the options for parents?
Option 1) Just do it — OK, this is the “best” option, but it is unlikely that this kind of extra money falls to the bottom in the average household.
Option 2) Just ignore it — Perhaps the most common situation. Maybe we’ll put something aside, maybe not, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. For some people, this works out. For others, it leaves either parents or children burdened with a heavy loan debt.
Option 3) Just ask for help — Parents of newborns usually have parents (grandparents) who are alive and who are willing to help if they were asked. Parents don’t want to ask for lots of reasons, and grandparents don’t always want to “force themselves” into situations where they may not be welcomed — and who wants to have a money conversation with their parents? But we know through research that two-thirds of grandparents would help if asked.
VestMatch comes in at Option 3. Parents can set up a VestMatch plan in just a few clicks, open an account at any bank or brokerage firm, even open a 529 Plan account, and then link that account to their VestMatch plan. They then can invite the grandparents (and uncles, aunts, cousins, godparents, etc.), by way of e-mail, to “join” their plan. At that point, everybody who is part of the plan can see how much is in the account, and they can decide to contribute. Everybody can also see who is contributing to the account and, soon, how that account is invested. This way everyone knows the status and can feels confident about contributing.
While your “Plan Partners”, those people who you invited, can contribute to your plan either every once in a while or on a regular monthly or quarterly basis. They can contribute conveniently through VestMatch, but there is a fee that VestMatch charges to offset the charges that it gets from banks for moving the money. A less convenient but more cost-conscious way is to either contribute by way of check into the bank or brokerage account set up for education, or set up an automated funds transfer from their checking account into the bank or brokerage account. Your bank or brokerage firm would have all the paperwork needed to make that happen.
So now the parents are contributing $300 per month, and each set of grandparents decides to contribute $200 per month. In addition, the godparents and the uncle contribute an extra $100 every birthday. Are the parents at $837 per month? Not quite — but they are a little $715 per month, and are well on their way. Perhaps the parents can think of other friends or relatives who may be willing to kick in $10 or $25 per month to close that gap.
Do you see how VestMatch works? It works because of the power in numbers. If you have a goal, and you can bring others to help you reach your goal, you can.
VestMatch moves to www.vestmatch.com
March 12, 2009 by vestmatchThis week, we moved the VestMatch site from it’s “secret” address for early users to our www.vestmatch.com. If you continue to use the old address, it will be automatically redirected to www.vestmatch.com.
We have been doing some additional work on some new features and fixing a bug or two that users uncovered. In the meantime, please continue to use the site and feel free to send us comments on your ideas, thoughts or concerns.
VestMatch Makes Improvements
February 27, 2009 by vestmatchVestMatch continues to make enhancements to the site so that you can more easily reach your financial goals. Here are a few updates:
* You can now link an account where you save for your goal to your VestMatch plan. This makes it easy to keep everyone updated on how close you are to reaching your goal. We pull data from your financial service company each night. Link your plan either from Create New Plan or Edit Plan links.
* If you don’t have an account where you save for your goal, you can open one right here right now with a leading firm, and then link that account to your VestMatch plan. Open an account either from Create New Plan or Edit Plan links.
* If you don’t wish to link your account, you can manually update your plan with contribution information. For un-linked accounts, see Contribution Activity link on the Plan Info page.
* We’ve added a Forums section so that you can pose questions to or answer questions from other users and VestMatch. You will find this in the Community section.
* We’ve added an FAQ to address the most common questions. You will find this in the Community section, or at the bottom of every page there is an FAQ link.
* We’ve also added a video on how to create a plan on the VestMatch home page as well as on YouTube. If you want to check YouTube.com, just search on VestMatch and you’ll see all our videos. We’ve also linked to the video on an earlier blog posting.
Next developments for VestMatch include, for plans with linked accounts, bringing in account history and positions — which will be editable by the plan champion — so that the VestMatch plan can accurately reflect contribution history and asset allocations. For plans without linked accounts, we will provide a place for the plan champion to input asset allocation and total asset value information.
We hope that you enjoy VestMatch. Be sure to tell others!
It’s Easy To Create A VestMatch Plan
February 27, 2009 by vestmatchYou can watch this video to see how easy it is to create a VestMatch plan.
Soliciting Comments via Forums, Support or Email
February 2, 2009 by vestmatchWe expect that early users of VestMatch will have many suggestions that will help us enhance the experience and usefulness of the site. There are several ways you can reach us. First, consider posting an item on the “Forums” section (click on Community and then on Forums) for all VestMatch users to see. Alternatively, you can send us a private e-mail using the Support section or just by emailing us as info@vestmatch.com.
We have already received great comments from Bill G., David, Bill M., Shari, Anne, and Tim, and thanks to you all. We look forward to additional comments from them and any users as we go forward.
Welcome To VestMatch
January 15, 2009 by vestmatchWe have just launched the test site of VestMatch and if you’re reading this you have probably been invited to be part of the test. We know that there are millions of cases in the US where groups of people are saving for a single goal. And we know that saving or investing collaboratively is crucial to achieving many of these goals. But we also know that collaborative saving or investing can be sloppy, paper-intensive and uncomfortable. Enter VestMatch.
VestMatch enables groups to more effectively save or invest together, join together as the goal gets closer, and celebrate together when the goal is reached.
I encourage you to experiment with VestMatch. We want you to set up a Profile, establish a Plan, invite others to be Plan Partners and see where you can go. You can save for something big (like college for your kids) or something smaller (like a family trip), but you and all the others involved in the Plan can use VestMatch to see how the savings are growing and to use VestMatch as a forum to communicate about the goal. You can comment, add photos, audio or video, and even blog about your experience.
Let me give you a real life example. My wife and I are saving for college for two boys. One of them goes off to college in the fall and one in the fall 2012. Their grandparents have been contributing to their college fund. But we live 2,000 miles away. So on VestMatch, I can post pictures of the boys, a movie that one of them made, clippings from the newspaper about track, and an audio clip of their band. Their grandparents can see how close we are to reaching the financial goal, see the pictures and files I added, make comments of their own, add their photos and keep the process going. And when son #1 goes off to college, he can post photos of his first day at school, his dorm room, his roommate, etc., his parents and grandparents to see.
How would you use VestMatch? Send me an email at matt@vestmatch.com or add a comment to this post below and I’ll report back.
